Smoke and Mirrors

…Anyone laboring under the impression that China is well on its way to a carbon-neutral future, reality can be sobering. Despite progress on the alternative-energy front, demand for power is expanding at such an extraordinary rate that it can only be satisfied by the combustion of vast additional quantities of coal, oil and natural gas. For example, between 2008 and 2030, the incremental increase in China’s consumption of oil alone is expected to equal India’s total annual oil consumption today, according to the International Energy Agency. “The government is being very aggressive in its pursuit of hydro, nuclear and renewables,” says Jone-Lin Wang, a senior director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), a U.S. energy consultancy. “But overall you’re not really moving the dial that much over the next 10 to 20 years. These things take time.”


Time is not on China’s side. The government has announced plans to add an astonishing 1,300 GW to its electrical generation capacity by 2020. (The U.S. is currently capable of generating 1,000 GW.) The goal is for 25-30% of this to come from clean and renewable technologies. But even if these ambitious targets are achieved, some 70% of China’s electricity will still come from coal-fired plants in 2020. That’s down from about 78% today.

One reason China is so power-hungry: beginning in 2002, the country began dramatically expanding its heavy industries such as steel and aluminum production and auto manufacturing